MAZZBOY I'm so pleased to have found AppleJack. I've spent a fair amount of time trying out other similar things but none of them have quite done what I've wanted, unlike AppleJack, so thanks.
It at first seems a little scary to the casual OS X user, in that it runs in single user mode, which I'd never seen before, but once you follow the simple instructions of restart and hold command S, it couldn't be simpler. Mac OS X's Disk Utility annoyingly would tell me that a volume needed to be repaired and then wouldn't let me, but AppleJack found a way around it.
I was beginning to get worried about my laptop but now all the bugs and things here and there that just didn't seem right are all fixed.
Again, thank you.
(Version 1.4.3)